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All summer long I worry about brain drain. I mean, it doesn’t keep me up at night or anything, but I think a lot about how their every-day habits of learning 9 months of the year halt during the summer months.

Our school sends us homework packets to do over the summer (not to turn in, but just as practice—which is really what homework is, after all), but it’s always just math and literacy. One of my favorite things about my kids’ school is that they start them on Spanish in Kindergarten. Oliver and Sommer have come away from these classes with the cutest little accents! Because they learn in a totally immersive way from teachers whose first language is Spanish (they don’t think their teachers even speak English!), they have adopted the best pronunciation when speaking.

So this summer I decided to do a little exercise in keeping the language recognition going by making labels for common household objects. So when we refer to these objects, my husband and I say them in Spanish and that reminds the kids to do the same. Since we are spending the last part of our summer in Scandinavia, I made the labels double-sided to introduce them to a little Swedish. I wanted to make them “flippable” so I used this amazing product from 3M— Scotch® Wall-Safe Tape—from Walmart so I could (A) attach a string securely to the wall and (B) not damage the paint in the process!

What you’ll need:

• Cardstock (2 colors)
• Circle punch
• Glue stick or double-stick tape
• String
• Scissors
• Scotch® Wall-Safe Tape

Print words in both languages on cardstock. Punch the works with a circle punch. I used yellow for Spanish and teal for Swedish.

Cut a 2-inch piece of string and sandwich in between the two circles, using a glue stick to attach them back to back.

So that I didn’t damage the paint on our walls, I used Scotch® Wall-Safe Tape that I bought at Walmart to attach the string to the wall.

Visit Scotch/3M for more clever inspiration for back-to-school ideas!

August 7, 2018| ad, Early Elementary, Older Elementary, Paper, STEM, Tween to Teen